Tag Archives: Privacy

Windows 10 is free like apps are free, like facebook is free. You are the product. Your personal information is far more valuable to the government, to advertisers than $50, $100 or $200 dollars you might pay for it.

When you actually read the privacy agreement from Microsoft it will blow your mind.

(1) comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process from competent authorities, including from law enforcement or other government agencies;

(2) protect our customers, for example to prevent spam or attempts to defraud users of the services, or to help prevent the loss of life or serious injury of anyone;

(3) operate and maintain the security of our services, including to prevent or stop an attack on our computer systems or networks; or

(4) protect the rights or property of Microsoft, including enforcing the terms governing the use of the services – however, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property of Microsoft, we will not inspect a customer’s private content ourselves, but we may refer the matter to law enforcement.

Mergers and Acquisitions If we decide to sell, buy, merge or otherwise reorganise our businesses in certain countries, this may involve us disclosing personal data to prospective or actual purchasers and their advisers, or receiving personal data from sellers and their advisers.

This is essentially carte blanche to spy on you. The NSA doesn’t need a backdoor anymore they have the front door. And millions of people just say “hell yeah it’s free, look how much better it is than windows 8! I can stream my xbox one games to my computer!”

Just wanted to post a word of warning. If you know anyone thinking of updating to windows 10 send them this post. If I left things out let me know in the comments or comment in the thread on the forum.

If you’re looking for an alternative to this orwellian nightmare I would highly suggest.

1. Email Privacy – Naked email is like a postcard for anyone to read. Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), an open source software program created by Phil Zimmermann in 1991, is the global standard for point-to-point encrypted and authenticated email. Hushmail is an OpenPGP-compatible web-based email platform that does not have access to your user password for decryption. Both products, when used correctly, offer subpoena-proof email communication.

2. File Privacy – Your files might be stored in the encrypted cloud but that doesn’t mean that they’re 100% safe for your eyes only. Free and open-source TrueCrypt allows you to encrypt folders or entire drives locally prior to syncing with Dropbox. BoxCryptor also facilitates local file encryption prior to cloud uploading and it comes with added compatibility for Android and iOS.

There is an alternative to the dual-application process described above. Although most cloud-based storage services transfer over an encrypted session and store data in an encrypted form, the files are still accessible to the service provider which makes the data vulnerable to court-ordered subpoena. In order to rectify this, two different zero-knowledge data storage companies provide secure online data backup and syncing – SpiderOak and Wuala. For obvious reasons, there is no password recovery and employees have zero access to your data.

3. Voice Privacy – Wiretapping will become more prevalent in the days and months ahead. From the creator of PGP, Zfone is a new secure VoIP phone software product utilizing a protocol called ZRTP which lets you make encrypted phone calls over the Internet. The project’s trademark is “whisper in someone’s ear from a thousand miles away.” You can listen to Zimmermann present Zfone at DEFCON 15.

Designed specifically for mobile devices and utilizing ZRTP, open-source RedPhone from Whisper Systems is an application that enables encrypted voice communication between RedPhone users on Android.

4. Chat Privacy – Encrypting your chat or instant messaging sessions is just as important as encrypting your email. Cryptocat establishes a secure, encrypted chat session that is not subject to commercial or government surveillance. Similar to Cryptocat, the older and more durable Off-the-record Messaging (OTR) cryptographic protocol generates new key pairs for every chat implementing a form of perfect forward secrecy and deniable encryption. It is available via Pidgin plugin.

5. Traffic Privacy – The final step in the process is geo-privacy, which refers to the protection of ‘information privacy’ with regard to geographic information. Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, have been used consistently for anonymous web browsing and IP address masking. Just make sure that your VPN provider does not log IP addresses and that they accept a form of payment that does not link you to the transaction.

Additionally, the Tor Project provides free software and an open network for privacy-oriented Internet usage. Intended to protect users’ personal freedom, privacy, and ability to conduct confidential business, Tor (The onion router) is a system that improves online anonymity by routing Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of layering and encrypting servers which impedes network surveillance or traffic analysis.